Archive for June, 2008

In which I read, and make silly mistakes.

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

In the interest of reading things outside of my defaults, I’ve decided to bother the booksellers at my friendly neighborhood bookstore. Porter Square Books has some good people working for it, and they give fascinating recommendations.

I got a Wendell Berry novel, Andy Catlett: Early Travels, and read it the other day. Mostly I want to read Faulkner now, which is unusual.

Then, the people behind the counter suggested The Name of The Rose, which of course I’ve already read (and ought to re-read), The Shadow of the Wind, and something by Murakami. Which batch is not all that far out of my usual reading, but I think it should do nicely anyway. 

I’d forgotten something about reading Mojtabai – I either take weeks to do it, or need one serious sitting. All That Road Going is clearly the former. It’s good, but it’s not one of those fast, easy, freedom-of-the-open-road numbers.

Also, I ought to be reading something entirely different, but … I’m a slacker, I admit it.

Or I could be finishing this knitting. I’m about five rows from the end of a shawl I’ve been working on for more than a year and a half. It’s going to be lovely, and I am going to have to find it a nice home far away from me. 

There’s something to be said for sitting in my (clean) kitchen, writing. 

Also, I just accidentally deleted all the comments on the blog. Whoops. This might turn into a problem, since I still haven’t actually figured out how the spam settings work. Anyway. I still like you, even if I deleted your comment. I’m going to go back to trying to talk myself out of trying to come up with a way to buy a loom, and step away from the computer before I do something else silly.

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In which there is reading and writing, but no ‘rithmetic.

Friday, June 13th, 2008

Seriously, please go look at my etsy shop. It’s forgetgutenberg.etsy.com, and it’s over in the sidebar as well. 

Today, I finished Hell & Earth, which is one of the many books Elizabeth Bear has coming out this summer, and The Titan’s Curse, which is the third book in the Percy Jackson series. They’re both quite good, although in no way alike. I wish I knew some convenient middle-school boys to give the Percy Jackson books to. I know some people who will want to read Hell & Earth, and a few who probably should whether or not they want to. The pile of books I need to read continues to grow – I’ve added A. G. Mojtabai’s All That Road Going and Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. (I loved Republic of Wine, so I clearly needed the new one.)

Other than that, I’m working on making words. It seems to be working, which I’m pleased about. I’ve given myself an unreasonable deadline in the interest of finishing wish. I’ve got this schedule all planned out; I’m not going to follow it, because that’s not what calendars are for in my world. On the other hand, I’ve got a concrete goal for the project, which should encourage actually doing it. Then I have to decide whether or not I want to try taking it back to Alabama. I think that’s going to depend on what direction the work goes in this time. Given the idea I came up with – assuming that one can spin the paper I want to spin – it might just not be a book arts project anymore.

I scraped in just under the wire and finished a charming skein of bamboo on Wednesday night at knitting. The only problem, since I had to leave the store, is that I’ve got something like half of a bobbin of singles left. Oh, the tragedy. I’m pleased with the yarn, although I’d really like to get the next bit of bamboo spun to a lace weight.

What I really want to know is why this writing thing is making me so much more productive about all the other projects. It’s probably exactly the same principle as having a paper to write causing your house to be clean. I know that’s not just me.

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Don’t panic.

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

I know, two posts in one day, what’s wrong? Nothing, except that it’s too hot in my house to do much of anything.

The purple yarn I posted for sale is now spoken for, so I’m putting up the next one.

This is two skeins of merino/tencel, in teal. Something I didn’t realize before – when this fiber is gone, there’s no more. Apparently the supplier has stopped making it. It’s basically sport to worsted weight, and about 208 yards total. For now, it’s available at $18. I would guess that it’s less than two ounces, and I reskeined it so it’s a little neater.

teal.jpg

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Things. Stuff.

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

Ah-hah. I’ve finally got an Etsy shop, under the username forgetgutenberg. It’s a little sparse, but … well. One ought to start out small, and I’m fond of my printed stuff. So. It’s something, anyway.

Also, I’ve got two fabulous new additions to my spinning wheel. The more exciting one is the second bobbin, which works beautifully and is all shiny and full of purple singles because of course I had to test it. Soon, I will have three, and then the yarn production is guaranteed to get out of hand. The other thing I got was LRF technology – little rubber feet. They appear to be helping with the tendency the legs have to slide around on the floor. Who knew? Not having to put the treadle back in every five minutes, that’s priceless.

Now, back to spinning. Pictures when I’m tired of that. 

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Well. That’s interesting.

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Once upon a time, about five years ago, I decided to try the NaNoWriMo experience. It was interesting, to say the least, and I produced 50k of words with no plot but a little bit of decent worldbuilding. I read that … document again a few months ago, and thought I might want to do something with it. I intended, I think, to write a short story or two and be done with it.

It can’t be that simple, though. Of course. It developed a plot, and maybe a little bit of character, and suddenly I’ve written this tremendous amount of stuff. The thing is, it’s still awful in a lot of ways, but it’s satisfying to make the attempt. It’s also well on its way to being the length of a novel, which is an accomplishment all on its own. Writing fiction is a huge challenge, although it’s actually probably more accurate to say that getting a whole piece of fiction is the challenge. It’s something about plot consistency, or maybe it’s just that it’s so much easier to get off the nice simple linear path if I’m writing something that isn’t based on a narrow field of research. Of course, I’m going to finish it and either hate it or be too freaked out to do anything with the darn thing. I don’t know how anybody gets the cursed confidence to sell words.

On the other hand, writing frees up a lot of other creative energy, so I’ve been working on other projects. I’m even scheduling some time to finish that … thing that isn’t a thesis (unless I decide that I do want to re-contact my old department and see if I can work something out) anymore. I might fail miserably to finish it, but I’m working to solid goals – and oddly enough, giving myself deadlines is sort of working. This is a new feature. Mostly I’m terrible with deadlines, but time is kind of at a premium around here for some reason, and as long as I’m keeping my goals reasonable and focusing on specific milestones in one project at a time, it’s working. Saying that is probably going to make it suddenly less effective, but I’m going to risk it anyway.

Either way, though, it’s been a successful couple of months. Writing is another one of those things one has to do often and in large quantities to appreciate properly. I suppose that’s why all the advice about blogs includes several repetitions of “post often.” I should probably pay more attention to that. Sorry. I appear to be putting most of my words in this other document.

When the current piece is done,  I’ve got another one to do, because certain elements of the plot suggest the thesis for a piece of research-intensive writing. That should be fascinating, at least to me, especially since it requires a solid basis in sixteenth century English law, modern law, principles of aesthetics, two major technological breakthroughs, the idea of a singularity, and visual culture. That’s not a whole lot, right? I can totally manage it.

Now, if I can maintain this level of optimism, I think I can do anything. 

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